Too Soft, Too Proud
by lily day
Summary: A look behind Ino's outward image. Slight romanceangst.


Lily: hey i'm back. things have been pretty shit lately but that won't stop me from writing!  
Phantom: Booyah! *punches fist in air*  
Fly-girl: You better believe it!  
  
  
Too Proud, Too Soft  
  
  
I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. It was late at might... or was it early in the morning? Either way, I lay there thinking. Thinking about...   
  
Sakura.  
  
Many people think I hate Sakura, I guess, that in a way, it's true. But not in the way you'd think. I hate Sakura because she's better than I'll ever be. She's smart. She's beautiful. A healthy beauty, a pure natural beauty with a glow of life that no one could resist. She seems... what's the word?... ethereal.   
  
This may come from being able to possess people's bodies, but I have good insight into what goes on in their heads.  
  
Sakura is honest. Not with herself, but with others. She is afraid of what people think of her. She thinks that if they knew certain things about her, they would leave her, so she is always trying to become what people want her to be. But she still remains happy and smart and pretty and amazing.   
  
She has so much love to give and she needs some one to give it too. Sasuke... he's too cold for her, no matter how she thinks she can melt his heart. Naruto is too unstable for her. She needs some one who she can count on, some one who is always there to back her up. Some one like Rock Lee, Mr. Thick Eyebrows. Lee is the only boy that doesn't drive Sakura up the wall, which is why I think they should get together and have fifty-five little Rock Lee babies.  
  
Oh, that one made me giggle. Rock Lee babies... hee hee.  
  
I wish I could still be Sakura's friend. I wish that some of Sakura's amazingness would rub off on me. For awhile I thought that her amazingness came from being in love with Sasuke. I thought that was what being in love did to you. Made you amazing and beautiful, because isn't that what love is? I have never been in love. I only pretend to like Sasuke, hoping I might fall in love, hoping I might become more amazing and more beautiful.  
  
That was a stupid mistake.  
  
By pretending to like Sasuke, I lost Sakura as a friend. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could do it over again.  
  
As I thought about Sakura, my mind began to stray to the other two girls.   
  
Ten Ten and Hinata.   
  
I admire them almost as much as I admire Sakura, but for different reasons.   
  
Ten Ten is always so happy and alive. She's so full of energy and never afraid to speak her mind, she's got that same healthy, sunny beauty that Sakura has. She's got this huge, sprawling family that loves her, not like mine. I have a mom a dad and a big house. She's got all this and she hardly even notices it.  
  
Hinata is the sweetest person I've ever met. She's an amazing cook, quiet, kind, caring, a good doctor, and, with the right encouragement, a spectacular fighter. Hinata's so pretty, too. So delicate. She'll make a good shinobi and a great wife. A total knockout. I think there'll be a blood feud between Kiba and Naruto over who gets to marry her.   
  
I wish I was like them.  
  
But I'm not.  
  
And it sucks...  
  
And it makes me so sad...  
  
And so angry...  
  
Angry with myself for not being a better person, angry with them for being so perfect. Why are they so good and smart and pretty and kind and amazing? Why am I not all those things? Why am I so sad and broken and angry and empty and such a liar? I lie all the time. Ever word that comes out of my mouth is a lie. Every bossy, unkind, egotistical word that I say is a lie and I hate it.  
  
Then why do I keep lying?  
  
Because I'm too afraid of what people will think of me if they knew the real me.   
  
Because I'm too proud to drop this facade that I've kept up for years.   
  
Because I'm too soft to take any criticism that they give me.   
  
Because they might leave me all on my own. If I'm mean to them, then they stay around so that they can fight me. And I want them to stay. I'm bossy because I want them to stay safe. I boss them around because I don't want them to get hurt or die.   
  
I would be nothing without them.  
  
I think one of them might know it.  
  
Shikamura.  
  
Shika-chan.  
  
He's known me forever and has seen me at some of my worst moments. He's seen the real me. And he hasn't left me or been mean to me. Whenever I say some nasty remark about Sakura's forehead, which is actually very graceful, he'll give me this look like he's trying to tell me something. Whenever he walks by me, he'll brush his hand over my arm or my shoulder,once again, like he's trying to tell me something.  
  
But he never says anything.  
  
Because that's the way that Shikamura works.  
  
Shikamura needs someone to take care of him. Someone like Hinata. Someone who'll feed him and be sweet to him and make sure he doesn't fall asleep in a tree before it rains. Someone like Hinata but with more fire. Someone who could get him into gear if it's needed.  
  
I don't know anybody like _that_.  
  
I'll look for them though.  
  
I want my friends to be happy. And if it means searching every village there is for their perfect match and then finding some way to get them together and then dragging them to the altar, I'll do it.  
  
Because I want them to be happy.  
  
Because it's the one thing that I can do that they can't.  
  
I can understand them.  
  
Even though I'm too proud and too soft to let _them_ understand _me_.


End file.
